Good. I like transparency and this has always been the truth. And I’m glad Valve isn’t doing much to fight against it.
This is in response to the new California law that forces stores to clearly disclose that the customer is buying a temporary license.
Just like the EU, California does a lot for global customer protection.
Except the cancer warning thing which didn’t exactly have the desired effect. Good intent, bad execution.
I find it indescribably funny that no matter what, every news site somehow manages to always put a mobile app install screen with the company’s product as the banner image for their articles, even in this case, when I think most people would have probably never even thought of Steam as a mobile app, only as PC software.
Honesty is good.
I still hate the future.
Company complies with the law.
PCMR: Wow, what a great company!
I just really want to pass on my game library to my kids one day. Can licenses be passed on, or is inheriting entertainment just dead now?
According to the EULA, no. According to common sense, leave the steam password in your will and you’re fine.
If i remember correctly, gog allows this
So if I download a pirate copy, I’m in the clear because I purchased a license.
Doesn’t GOG provide the games without copy protection? Doesn’t that mean you can actually back up your installed games?
In any case, these services should allow their customers to download a digital copy of an ISO or an installable package of the game so it can be saved as a backup and installed independently.
drm is optional on steam, plenty of games are just binaries you can backup like any other. Not that it helps much with the games that do use it…
Is there a way through steam to see your owned drm free games (or in owned)?
The steam store page of a game should to tell on the right sidebar if
- it uses 3rd party DRM
- or online-only restriction
- or requires 3rd party account sign-in
All of these are marked in a visible yellowish frame below the steam-feature list.
If it uses DRM that is not 3rd party, I think that means it uses Steam DRM, which is not common in my experience. This one is also kind of easy to patch out, or at least it was the last time I did so which was years ago
Yea, I thought gamma was talking about steam games that don’t have steam drm. Aka drm free steam is still a drm and unless I’m dumb most games have steam drm.
I don’t think so. most often you just need to put a steam emu’s dll besides it, and that’s because most games are not coded to handle when steam was not installed. when a game has steam drm, you have to use an additional program that modifies the game’s executable. so far I only had to do this once
When you buy on GOG you really get the game, you can (without needing a launcher) download installers without any trouble and you can do whatever you want with them. Want to put a bunch into a pen drive and share with you friends? No problem. Want to install them on a device with no Internet connection? No problem. Want to back them up for whatever reason? No problem.
EDIT: People telling me its not legal, its not about being legal or not, its about having the power to decide to do whatever you want.
Oh cool! I didn’t know they went that far.
I’m buying from GOG from now on.
Gog has the same language, check section 2.1 of their user agreement.
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog
Maybe, but they provide the software without DRM and with the option to get an offline installer.
(I just learned Steam does that as well apparently but with extra steps.)
corporations would make breathing a subscription service if they could
Every game I bought before the wording change should be under my ownership imo. Retroactive shit is bullshit.
It was always in the EULA. You signed the contract when you made the account.
Nobody reads that shit.
It’s still not retroactive
I’d rather own the games that I pay for than “rent” them in the first place. Sure, this is useful. But it doesn’t really solve the issue of not owning anything you buy these days. If anything this will just give them an excuse when they decide to take games you paid for away from you.
I’d rather own the games that I pay for than “rent” them in the first place.
But people will still pay up anyway.
Gamers have a very short memory. The “ooh shiny!” mentality means that, as a demographic, they are willing to tolerate a high degree of abuse as long as they get to placate themselves with self amusement software.
I feel like there needs to be some kind of way of recording what games have been purchased (licensed) so that if a store were using goes out of business we should be able to get it from another store, at least for a very reduced price just to cover their costs.
If gamers weren’t so against it, honestly NFTs could actually be that thing.
You used to able to buy a game in a box and it came with a code. Games got too large and instead of the next thing after Blu-Ray, they went full digital. Maybe we can get legislation for PC game have to have a physical option and have discs for installing and when you use the code you can undo the code and be able to resell it. Thoughts?
To play devils advocate, which I seem to do a lot lately I admit, you were still just purchasing a license then as well. The process of revocation would be so convoluted as to be all but impossible, but you were never actually purchasing permanent and irrevocable access to the game.
And if you want to get back to that, just buy your games from GOG.
Or just pirate the games you purchase, and it won’t matter if your Steam account is banned or deleted. Which is honestly often the better option these days, because it has the bullshit DRM ripped out of it.
Or just pirate the games you purchase, and it won’t matter if your Steam account is banned or deleted. Which is honestly often the better option these days, because it has the bullshit DRM ripped out of it.
most games don’t have DRM, so this is easily done by making a copy of the game files, and using the goldberg steam emu on it
